random philosophizing on immortality

Clive Cussler is 80 years old today. I heard it on NPR. I'm not a particular fan of Mr. Cussler, but it did surprise me, although it probably shouldn't have, that he has so many years under his belt.

I thought about all of the authors who have been published, and realized how many of them - the majority, really - are no longer among the living. It just goes to show that writing really is the key to immortality. The trick is to make sure that what survives is what you want the world to see, because it will ultimately be the only thing for which a writer is remembered.

This is especially true of me. I am unable to have children, so there will be no little pockets of my DNA racing around in the world at large. The Crickets can rest easy on that point... Once I'm gone, there will be no "junior" to rear his or her ugly head and continue to perpetrate scribblings in my image. Nothing will physically remain of me once I have slipped away.

My work, though, will remain. My poems, my short stories, my songs, my blogs, my words. My vampires really do have the potential to live forever. It's a strange thing to ponder.

My mind won't let me get too far down the path of immortality, though, without reminding me in a paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln that the world will little note nor long remember anything I do or anything I am/was. For a writer to become truly immortal, people have to read what that writer created. That is where literary immortality arises.

In that respect, I'm safe, because in terms of people reading what I write, I'm dead already. I can't even get a chirp back from a Cricket on this blog! It's pretty quiet here in this mausoleum built of words.

Maybe immortality comes to those who write. Maybe it never comes at all. One thing is certain: living with your eyes on tomorrow will make you lose sight of today. Today is all we really have.